Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

The problem of students who are unable to adequately read their grade-level textbooks is not new; the problem starts in early elementary school and only gets worse as students move up in grade levels. Unfortunately, the rise of the internet in the past twenty years has only exacerbated the problem.

Let’s look briefly at the pre-internet reading situation in middle-class schools and above (poor schools have additional problems which will not be treated in this particular article). Looking back, the most important function of the school library was to be filled with books to be used for school research projects which were at the correct reading levels for students.

Not only were grade-level books provided, but there were plenty of below-grade-level books on every topic available to readers who were still below grade-level. For example, a middle-school student with a lower reading level could still find good primary-level books on any research topic assigned. There used to be hundreds of books available through publishers, on every conceivable topic, for school libraries and public libraries to choose from. Bookstores made them available to the general public.

Today, funding priorities are focused less on providing new books for the school library–partly because of the explosion of new topics and knowledge in our modern world, and also because of the explosion of information on the internet. Now funding must be divided between books, and new library computers.

The market for children’s non-fiction has plummeted since 2005. Sales to both libraries and bookstores have dropped substantially. Therefore, fewer nonfiction books for children are being written and published. Publishers and booksellers decided to drop most nonfiction, and focus primarily on children’s fiction–for which there does continue to be a market.

The lack of nonfiction is particularly damaging for boys. They tend to prefer autobiographies, nonfiction, newspapers, and realistic topics. Ever since 2005, as the internet has become more powerful, children’s nonfiction has declined. This decline is preventing many boys from developing as readers. National standards in Britain and America drive the decline even further, “…as the strictures of the national curriculum have driven many publishers to stop producing anything very original, and how many books on Vikings and rainforests do we really need?”

Starting in middle school–most commonly Grade 6 and above–teachers now direct students to the internet for research, instead of to school libraries. One reason is that science classes are now often researching topics which are not even available in books in the school libraries–things such as genetics, and various types of cells–and this is happening in Grades 6, 7, and 8.

Students are now being asked to research obscure people for reasons of diversity in the classroom, rather than famous people. This means that the information can only be found on the internet. Students are now expected to use the internet for all research. This is now true even in elementary school. Students may be assigned reports on animals, for example. Perhaps there are perfectly good books in the school library at the right reading level; however, it has now become “too much trouble” to even check , when one can “just look it up online.”

Using online sources creates a much worse problem–aside from the problem of whether a source is reliable, biased, or incomplete–that is, the problem of reading level!

Below is reading sample from a Grade 5 science text which more than half of students (even in good schools) might find too difficult to read without the teacher’s help. Why? Because students are now used to reading only fiction in reading class. They are not used to the vocabulary in non-fiction; nor are they used to reading expository sentences..

Not only have student reading levels declined in real terms, but the sources students are now attempting to use are usually written at far too high of a level for their age. Students in middle school and high school usually go first to Wikipedia (and are often specifically told to do so by their teachers, particularly in international schools that have much less access to English-language printed material). Unlike school library books or school text books of old, vocabulary is not controlled for difficulty. Sometimes the articles are poorly written, and written by scholars who are just trying to impress other scholars with their difficult vocabulary.

Below is a section of what one of my 7th-graders attempted to read for a report on glial cells last year, using Wikipedia. Most students now need adult help to translate and explain what they are trying to read. To a poor reader, this may as well be in Chinese:

Those students who can afford it hire private tutors. My students show up and say, “I have a project or report due next week on glial cells (or guard cells, or an obscure historical figure). Can you help me?” Students arrive knowing nothing about the topic, and are expected to research on line, and write a report listing their sources. So, together we look on line and usually find very scholarly articles, which I, as an excellent reader in my 60s with a graduate degree and decades of experience teaching, sometimes have trouble understanding! So we pull out little snippets of information from various articles, which I explain in plain English and then mark our source. Even many Wikipedia articles are written by scholars, seemingly just in order to impress other scholars!

I learned a great trick years ago when I was in a professional writers’ group. If you need good, concise information on an area or a subject, one of the best ways to find it is to go directly to children’s books, where you can find the information thoroughly distilled and written in clear, easy English. I use this same strategy now and show students how they can search on the internet using the search terms “my topic + explained for children.” It doesn’t always work, but it often does. Sometimes we arrive at a website where something has been clearly explained at a reading level appropriate for middle-school students.

The thing which most excited me about the internet when it first began, especially as an overseas teacher with little access to English-language reading materials, was its potential as a world library at our fingertips. Sadly, much of this potential is being lost for two reasons. First, children are not developing adequate non-fiction reading abilities to function in society. Second, most of what is available on the internet is written at far too high of a level for students to be able to benefit from it.

In most American schools, for the past several decades, the textbook has been seen by teachers as only one resource of many for classroom use. In fact, years ago, over-reliance on the textbook was almost seen as the mark of a lazy teacher, within the teaching profession. Unfortunately, the current result of this attitude has now led to teacher over-reliance on the internet, with students who are unable to understand either their textbooks OR the internet! I personally have come around 180° to the view that students would be better served if they learned and discussed in class everything which is in the textbook. Now, however, there is a new problem! Many schools are now moving entirely away from textbooks as a way to save money, and teachers are mostly downloading random worksheets from the internet. Unfortunately, it is students who are again losing out on their education.

Part II of this series will discuss what parents, schools, and teachers can do to address these problems.

The flipped classroom is just not appropriate for all subjects, all of the time. This educational fad has gone way too far, and is being used for the wrong reasons. Most importantly, it runs into problems when teachers attempt to use it as a time-saving device in order to cover more material, because only a small percentage of students’ reading levels are actually up to grade level.

While the flipped classroom sounds like a new idea, it is actually an old idea. Several decades ago, it was called preparation–a good name–in Britain, although I am not aware of any specific name for it in America. It often consisted of reading a selection in a text book before arriving in class, for example, so that one could better benefit from a lecture.

The flipped model works extremely well for math classes. As an elementary teacher, I would look each day at the following day’s homework section. I would give about fifteen minutes of instruction and guided practice specifically on what my third graders needed to complete that day’s homework. We did not waste time in class doing homework.

I expected all children arrive in class with their homework complete, in order to be ready for the most important part of the lesson, learning from mistakes. Right or wrong, they all got nice, big A‘s on the homework for completing it in pencil (including showing all work and carry numbers or cross-outs). If they did not show their work, or if the work was either undone, or incomplete, they got a large, red F. Within a short time EVERY child arrived daily with homework done. We then put pencils away, and got out ink pens which we called “marking pens.” Each child corrected their own paper. There was no incentive to erase wrong answers, because the child already had an A, just for completing the homework. We spent the following 30 minutes going over the problems missed by the largest numbers of students, working them on the board. Students learned so much when they could see where they went wrong. In most cases, we found errors such as subtracting the ones place, while adding the ten’s place, in the same problem–or, in forgetting to add in carry numbers, things like that. In math class, the flipped classroom works fantastically.

Using the flipped classroom as a time-saving device runs into trouble in subjects which require a lot of reading for two reasons. One reason is that in many good schools, students are feeling overwhelmed with the amount of homework, leading them to take ineffective shortcuts. Using Spark Notes, and similar services, just do not engage student interest, and students miss the benefit of the literature.

The most important reason the flipped classroom runs into trouble is that students’ reading levels are just not up to grade-level standard in terms of being able to read either text books, or literature, on their own.

This problem is not new. It was widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. Secondary teachers in Colorado at that time were required to take Reading in the Content Area. It was a course designed to help secondary teachers help students who were unable to read their textbooks adequately. Because of the decline in book reading and adequate reading instruction, together with the rise in technology, in 2013, more than two-thirds of students in the United States were now below reading level for their grade.

Unfortunately, today, most students, even some of the best students are not even attempting to read literature (or their history, or science, text books). Most are attempting to find the film online. Poor readers who attempt to read Spark Notes have trouble understanding even that, and certainly no one finds Spark Notes inspiring.

Many secondary English teachers (including elementary reading teachers, and secondary science and history teachers) are now assigning reading for homework, in order to cover more material and just have discussion in class. The problem with this is that two-thirds of students are either not able to read effectively, and do not even attempt to read because of feeling overwhelmed.

So what do teachers need to do in order to combat these problems effectively?

First, they need to read the book (or text book section) themselves, in the mindset of a student, thinking about vocabulary which many students may not know, and noting it down. They need to think about the major ideas and how those ideas relate to life today.

Next, they need to introduce the book or reading selection with a short, inspirational talk, that will make students feel like they can’t wait to read more! They need to talk about and explain vocabulary (whether it is old-fashioned language or science terms) before students start to read. History teachers need to think about the problems they are teaching about in a historical context and how those problems relate to life in the world somewhere today. Introduce the similar problems and questions of today and how they are being dealt with in the modern world, then look at the same questions in how they are being dealt with in the novel, or in history, or in the science text book. Discuss what could happen in the future with the same issues.

Rather than starting a unit with reading the text book or novel, start the unit with a discussion of the students’ life questions about the issues which will arise in the reading selection Here are three examples:

History: While studying various political decisions of Roman Emperors, first discuss similar problems in the modern world. Open with a question, “What do you think about when you hear of an apartment building collapse that kills people because of shoddy building practices? What should be done?” Or, “What’s it like to be stuck in rush-hour traffic? What would it be like if the highway were also clogged with pedestrians, donkey carts, and horse-drawn carriages all at the same time, and it happened four times a day instead of two times a day?” Then, “Now let’s see how they dealt with these same problems in ancient Rome.”

Rhett loves Scarlet, while Scarlet loves Ashley and uses Rhett, in Gone with the Wind

Literature: “How many of you have ever had the experience of being in love with someone, only to have that person be in love with a different, third person?” Then, “The problem of love triangles is universal throughout human history, and that’s what this novel is about.”

Science (Astronomy): “Does alien life exist on other planets, or in other galaxies? What do various current scientists think about this, and why? Which planets and stars are most likely for this? What kinds of planetary conditions are thought to be necessary? Could we actually travel to other stars or planets, and how long might it take?” Then, “Now let’s turn to the text book and begin reading together about the planets.”

Lastly, MUCH more time needs to be devoted to in-class reading (even in high school). If teachers are concerned about embarrassing some students reading aloud, or if there are poor oral readers, students benefit greatly (even in high school) from the teacher reading aloud well (and adding in inflections and pauses), while they follow along. It also gives everyone a chance to stop and discuss various points, such as how they feel about actions characters take, or what situations they find themselves in.

Teachers need to inspire and motivatestudents, and help students to see connections that they would not see on their own. If the teacher is excited about the material, he cannot help but communicate that love and excitement to the students.

Mohamed, one of my tutoring students, was already in Grade 7 with a serious reading problem; his reading level was only about Grade 5. In order to disguise this, whenever he was asked to read aloud, either in class, or in a small group, he would read twice as fast as he normally spoke, only pronounced the beginnings of words, slurred the rest, and mumbled as much as possible. This way, students hear his voice reading quickly, even if what he says is not understood.

However, the surprising thing is that even excellent readers are in the habit of reading aloud in the same way. When I investigated as to why this was so, I discovered that students judge each other, and even bully each other, based upon their reading speed in class! The reason for reading so quickly, no matter that it sounds like, “”blethebletheblethebletheblethebletheblethe…” is to show off one’s quick reading ability to other students, to show that one can read at least as fast, if not faster than, other students. This style of reading is equally common from elementary school through high school.

Mohamed was an intelligent boy who had lost all confidence in himself. Mohamed attends an American School in an African country, and Mohamed was threatened with being expelled from school the following year if his grades did not improve (the policy of schools in this country if one has poor grades for two years in a row) . Unfortunately, this is what it took before Mohamed’s parents took his problem seriously.

I worked with Mohamed for two years to bring both his reading and math up to grade level. His reading is still far below what it should be, but it is greatly improved, and his oral reading is now excellent. In order to start by breaking his bad habits, as well as not wanting him to get hung up on vocabulary he did not know, we went all the way down to a Kindergarten primer. I keep the McGuffey Readers at home for students who need a graduated program that starts simply. I insisted both on reading slowly enough to enunciate the ending of every word clearly, and on reading with great expression, as if we were putting on a play. Sometimes we took turns reading sentences, or various dialog parts in a story. We also read fairy tales with great expression. We moved gradually through the books, and by the time we got halfway through the Grade 2 book, completely new reading habits had been established with easy material. It was then easy to move on to harder material.

Now Mohamed is having to read more difficult books in school, books such as The Outsiders and Animal Farm, which on his own are still above his reading level. Yet, Mohamed’s spoken English (not his native language) is excellent, better than most other students in the school. He has the right pronunciation, rhythm, and inflection, all of which help him tremendously. So with these more difficult books, I have taken another approach. I read aloud with expression, while he follows along silently. We stop frequently to discuss and clarify what’s happening, new vocabulary, discuss how we feel about what’s happening, what we think might happen next, whether we agree with the characters’ decisions, what we might do in the same situations, etc. Then when Mohamed is asked to read in class in his small group, he has no trouble doing this and understanding what he is reading, following our sessions.

Surprisingly, even though he now reads aloud far better than others in his class, the others still try to bully him because his oral reading speed is slower than theirs, even though he is reading at a normal adult-speaking speed, and very clearly. He has gone to several teachers at school and they all tell him that he is reading aloud better than the others now. What this means is that dominant students want to pressure others into doing it “their way,” even if that way is not correct.

The Handwriting without Tears curriculum is currently being implemented in many schools throughout the United States. Is it a good program? I have been asked to give my opinion.

I am an expert teacher of handwriting, and have over 20 years of experience in teaching both printing and cursive at both the Kindergarten and Grade Three levels. So the opinions below are my impressions from what I can gather about the program from the Handwriting without Tears website and from online information (at present I live and teach overseas, and have not seen or used the program myself, nor ever heard of it, before being asked for my opinion).

This Program Directly Addresses a Major Problem

One of the main problems with teaching handwriting (both printing and cursive) is that most current teachers have never had any instruction themselves in how to teach these skills. This program takes students from Pre-Kindergarten through Fifth Grade. It appears that the program is well-thought-out in terms of appropriate motor skills for preschoolers. Specifically, it appears that the program TEACHES THE TEACHERS HOW TO TEACH IT.

In order to teach cursive writing well, teachers need to be more competent and confident in their skills than this

It is not so important which program is used in teaching handwriting (although I personally found D’Nealian more difficult than other styles to teach well). The important thing is, does the TEACHER feel confident in his or her own handwriting skills, and with the methods to be used in communicating and practicing those skills with students? These days, most teachers do not feel confident with these skills (either because they were never taught as students themselves to the point of mastery, or because they had no instruction in how to teach it, and they don’t remember it from when they were young). This program DIRECTLY addresses these problems, which I would say is a big plus.

The other big plus with this program is that all teachers in the same school are being trained in use of the SAME program. It can be frustrating and confusing for students when they go from class-to-class, and each new teacher has a completely different type, standard, method, and approach to teaching handwriting. So this factor is especially helpful for students.

Handwriting Standards By Grade Level

This programs sets in place standards to be achieved between Kindergarten and Fourth Grade. Frankly, these standards do look a bit low to me, speaking as a veteran teacher of many years. However, their video (on home page) mentions that the program only takes ten minutes a day. Looking at it from this perspective, the standards are good.

Writing Style

Printing Style for “Handwriting without Tears” (as found on the internet).

This printing style is the same as traditional printing, as it was taught before D’Nealian style (slanted, with tails on the ends of letters, which most probably CREATED all the handwriting “tears”). This vertical block printing is both the most legible, easiest to master for the student, and easiest to teach for the teacher.

Desk strips in the new “Handwriting without Tears” cursive style.

I do not like the new Handwriting without Tears cursive style at all; in fact, I find it quite ugly. It is completely vertical, and devoid of both lead-in strokes or tails (lead-in strokes are used in the traditional cursive methods, while tails replaced lead-in strokes in more recent methods such as D’Nealian). My thoughts are that the vertical style was adopted in this method to do away with the need to turn the paper. Slant is not very difficult to master on a sheet of paper, but is nearly impossible in a workbook, such as is used in this program (and other recent programs). No doubt a simplified style was adopted to help students with dysgraphia.

Conclusion

In recent years, it seems that the major problem in teaching handwriting has not been whether the students learn cursive at school; it has been whether the students’ writing is legible at all!

Speaking as a veteran expert cursive (and printing) teacher, looking through the program, it seems very expensivewith many unnecessary bells and whistles (expensive manipulative and workbook materials and expensive workshops). None of these things are at all necessary to teach cursive effectively.

Preschool manipulatives for the Handwriting without Tears program.

For teachers who have no idea how to teach cursive, and who have never been taught, this program does offer good support. The use of manipulative materials can be fun for students and give new teachers of handwriting confidence in what they are doing. (I was fortunate to recall how I was taught as a child; I also had the support of another cursive teaching expert, a generation older than myself, who still happened to be teaching in the same school).

Overall, I would come down in favor of this program because it addresses the following issues:

1.) Handwriting instruction IS being given to students, with a focus on at least achieving legibility.

2.) Teachers ARE being given good support and training.

3.) The program seems to be well-thought-out over several years, and all teachers in the same school are being asked to use the same teaching methods, and same style of printing and cursive.

4.) The program maintains an emphasis on the positive and fun aspects of handwriting, with students and parents, through use of manipulatives, and by working only ten minutes a day (according to the video.

This amazing poem, containing over 800 notorious irregularities in English spelling, is better known abroad by foreigners than by native speakers. (I only learned, myself, of its existence from foreign speakers.)

The Chaos was written by G. Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), a Dutchman, in 1922. Trenité was a student of classics, law, and political science, and a teacher in the Netherlands, later in California, and finally in Haarlem. He published several textbooks in English and French, and wrote many columns for an Amsterdam weekly newspaper using the pen name Charivarius.

The poem is extremely difficult for non-native speakers to read correctly. The author originally added it as an appendix to a book of English pronunciation exercises. The point is that non-native speakers can never tell how to pronounce words encountered in writing.

For any non-native speakers, YouTube has a reading aloud by an Englishman HERE.

Several versions, which have been added to by others over the years, are in circulation. Some of these circulating versions have nearly doubled the length of the poem. Below is the author’s original version.

Sometimes I tutor students who have been allowed to advance to a grade far beyond their reading level. Special help (other than ordinary private tutors) is not available in my country. So my problem is how to help these students.

This week I had a student in upper middle school who was supposed to read a book of classic literature written in about 1880. The student wasn’t able to read the book at all (not even one page). I taught this student many years ago in an early elementary grade and he was weak then. He is even weaker now. This student is now approximately four years advanced beyond his reading level. There is no question that this boy has a learning disability, but there are no facilities or specialists for testing such things in my country.

When this student left my class five years ago, I told his mother that what he really needed was as much encouragement as possible to stay in school. Today I see that the student is still interested, motivated, and DOES try in spite of not being able to read anything for the class.

I began by trying to rewrite the classic book as a much simpler story so that I could read it with the student. It’s quite a long book, so I was only able to rewrite a quarter of the book in a few days. I finally gave up on the rest (done in my free time for no pay). I did read through this easier version with the student, and he enjoyed it; however, there were still many common words in English that he did not know, which people who are native speakers might know.

Once we got though what I’d written, we only had an hour to summarize the rest of the book before my student has a test on it in two days. So I quickly tried to highlight the most important parts of the story and dictated four or five paragraphs of the rest of the story, which my student copied. He relies on copying things down and trying to memorize them.

Should I do this? When the student came to me, he was already getting an F. If he fails, he will drop out of school. Our school is a high-standard college prep school. There are no other alternative English-language schools within 300 miles, and those are three times the price of our school, to say nothing of this student not having any family or other support to attend a school far away. The student cannot switch to a school in another language at this late date.

While I’m sure this student will not make it to college, my objective here is to help this student get his grade up to a C (or higher), to stay in school as long as possible, and to get as much as possible out of his education. It’s not ideal, but the student is definitely learning, is still interested, and still positive. Learning anything is better than learning nothing.

Siobhan Curious, who teaches introductory college literature, wonders how to motivate students who don’t want to read. This is a similar problem to motivating my students who can’t read. I think part of the answer is to try to get them excited about the story itself, sometimes even helping them to read it– which gives SOME the incentive to want to read it on their own.